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23 Jan 2007

Mumia on the great conspiracy

More ecosocialism from brother Mumia!

read him, blog...spread the word from a cell in the USA across the globe, creative commons applies I guess.

HOW THE FORCES OF CAPITAL GOT US WHERE WE ARE (OR 'GLOBAL WARMING II') ================================================ [Col. Writ. 1/14/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

While I talked about the probable impact of global warming (greenhouse gases), I didn't directly address the sources of much of it.

Let's be clear. Much of it, perhaps most, is cars. Some folks may be thinking -- 'uh oh -- here he goes again with that back-to-nature, John Africa talk again. He actually wants us to give up our cars!'

But how many of us know that in the good old days -- say, in the 19-teens, and the '20s, cars were electric cars -- run on batteries?

In the early third of the 20th century, most American mass transit was an electrical affair -- relatively quiet, with far fewer pollutants being belched into the air.

Writer and researcher Mark Zepezauer, in his brilliant 2004 book, *Take the Rich Off Welfare* (Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press) tells the story with brevity and clarity, as he writes:

"The extent to which automobiles dominate our lives didn't just happen by accident -- at least part of it was the result of a criminal conspiracy. Back in the early 1930s, most people living in cities got around on electric streetcars. Concerned that this wasn't the kind of environment in which they could sell a lot of buses, General Motors (GM), using a series of front companies, began buying up streetcar systems, tearing out the tracks, buying buses from itself, and then selling the new, polluting bus systems back to the cities -- usually with contracts that prohibited the purchase of 'any equipment using fuel or means of propulsion other than gas.' Sometimes the contracts required that the new owners buy all their replacement buses from GM.

"GM was soon joined by Greyhound, Firestone Tire and Rubber, Standard Oil of California (also called Chevron), and Mack Trucks. In 1949 -- after these companies had destroyed more than 100 streetcar systems in over 40 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City -- GM, Chevron, and Firestone were convicted of a criminal conspiracy to restrain trade. They were fined $5,000 each, and the executives who organized the scheme were fined $1.00 each." [p. 139]

Boy -- what does that tell you about 'equal justice under law?'

(Speaking of John Africa, I'm reminded of the opening words of his *The Judges Letter*, which reads, "The courts are the tools of industrial plague, granting big business privilege to poison our earth.")

There are some 520 million cars in the world today; 200 million (38.5%!) are driven in the U.S. The U.S. has only 5% of the world's population, and drives nearly 40% of the cars.

When we are faced with the chilling spectacle of global warming, with the rising of the oceans along with temperatures, and with the very real threat to coastal cities and populations all around the world, there's a reason for it.

And some big U.S. businesses made plenty of money off it. The pollution in our lungs, the warming air currents melting the arctic snow and creating rising sea levels, the very same man-made temperature changes that have spawned stronger, more destructive hurricanes was translated into billions of dollars in U.S. corporate coffers, amassed over decades. It is the very essence of capitalism.

It didn't have to be this way. It could've been very different.

Only people, awake and aware -- and determined to build a new world, can begin to change it.

Time is running out for over 1/2 a billion people, whose living space is seriously threatened with flooding.

It's not too late to reverse this monstrous trend. But, it can't be kept for later.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Mr. Jamal's recent book features a chapter on the remarkable women who helped build and defend the Black Panther Party: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478.] ===============================

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal

MUMIA'S COLUMNS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED AS BROADLY AS POSSIBLE TO INSPIRE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND HELP CALL ATTENTION TO HIS CASE.

The campaign to kill Mumia is in full swing and we need you to **please** contact as many publications and information outlets as you possibly can to run Mumia's commentaries (on-line and **especially off-line**)!! The only requirements are that you run them *unedited*, with every word including copyright information intact, and send a copy of the publication to Mumia and/or ICFFMAJ. THANK YOU!!!

Keep updated by reading ACTION ALERTS!! at http://www.mumia.org, http://www.onamove.com/ and their links. ========================================

No Nonsense Guide to Green Politics

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About Me

I am a green activist, writer and economist. Three kids, live in Winkfield. Live low impact on the land in my trailer, I am a Green Party local councillor. Ecosocialist and fan of Elinor Ostrom, have worked closely with the Peruvian indigenous leader Hugo Blanco to fight.